UPC brand to disappear in the Netherlands

If LIberty Gobal’s bid to take over Dutch cable operator Ziggo ia successful, the UPC brand will disappear.

Ziggo is the largest of the two main cable operators in the Netherlands and will become the main brand after Liberty Global has merged UPC Nederlnd and Ziggo. The new company will also have its HQ in the current Ziggo offices in Utrecht. Currently, UPC is headquartered in Amsterdam.

Ziggo CEO René Obermann, who just joined the company on January 1, said during a press conference this morning that he will leave his new post directly after the merger. The transaction is expected to close in the second half of the year. Obermann comes from Deutsche Telekom and he succeeded Berbard Dijkhuizen.

The takeover will be subject to regulatory approval by the Autoriteit Consument & Markt (ACM) and a green light is not a foregone conclusion. For consumers there will be little effect, as the two cable operators serve different regions, but broadcasters might object against a single operator in the country. At the moment, KPN’s DTT and IPTV platforms and Canal Digitaal Satelliet DTH are the only national competitors.

White Paper

For more than 80 years, Telekom Romania Communications (formerly known as Romtelecom), an Hellenic Telecommunications Organization (OTE) subsidiary controlled by Deutsche Telekom, has been providing a reliable, innovative, and easy-to-use communications services including traditional fixed telephony, broadband Internet, and TV (e.g., satellite, IPTV, and cable) to the Romanian market. … [Download this White Paper...]

Speakers’ Corner

The broadcast and TV industries have been focusing heavily on 4K for at least two years now and hyping it as the next big thing for video quality. Yet it has not yet delivered on its promise for several reasons, including insufficient capacity in the transport infrastructure, lack of enough compelling 4K content and the time taken to deploy compatible products. … [Read More...]